Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904.

Laura—Part III

XXXVII. If scalding sighs, my faith may testify

Robert Tofte (1561–1620)

IF scalding sighs, my faith may testify;

And brinish tears, of love may warrant be:

Both th’ one and th’ other thou hast seen with eye!

Then what wouldst have, hard hearted! more of me?

But thou, perhaps, though much I have endured,

Wouldst yet be better of my faith assured.

Then with thine eyes, into my breast do peer!

Which, for the nonce, I leave to open sight;

And that which now thou doubt’st, see shalt thou clear.

Ah, mark it then; and view what shows so bright!

But too too cruel art thou, and precise;

That will not credit give to thine own eyes!